Washington's Asian policy to focus more on business

Washington's Asian policy to focus more on business

By Christopher Hines

HONG KONG, Sept. 5 (AFP) - Members of a high-powered US business
delegation that swung through Hong Kong after a presidential
trade mission to China say they witnessed a historic shakeup in
US policy towards Asia.

US policy, according to the delegates, is now focused on
winning business contracts and creating jobs back home over the
political and security concerns of the Cold War era.

"For many, many years, our foreign relations in the United
States ... were driven, in nearly every case, of matters
geopolitical, not matters economic," said Joseph Gorman, chairman
of TRW Inc., a US engineering and high-technology company with
annual sales of 8.5 billion dollars.

"What you see here is an historic change," said Gorman, one of
24 American business leaders who accompanied US Commerce
Secretary Ron Brown's trade mission to China last week.

John Bryson, chairman of Southern California Edison Co., a
major US utility that expects to sign two billion dollars worth
of contracts in China, said he has never seen the US government
and business work so closely together in developing overseas
export markets, particularly in Asia.

"The United States government is an extremely effective
partner and advocate for the United States business community,"
said Bryson, also a member of the delegation. "We are very
pleased by the leadership provided by the commerce secretary."

Brown said that for the first time in its history, the United
States has developed an export policy that will actively use
America's political power and diplomacy to win contracts for its
companies overseas.

"This is a new partnership between the US government and the
US business community," said Brown, whose trip to China yielded
more than six billion dollars in contracts for US companies. "And
we are only at the beginning of what we can accomplish ... one of
our priorities has to be creating jobs for Americans."

While in Hong Kong, Brown heard complaints that the US
intelligence and military offices here are believed to employ
dozens of personnel, remnants of a time when priority was given
to monitoring the activities of the now-collapsed Soviet Union
and China's formerly closed society.

The US Commerce Department, however, still only has three
officials in Hong Kong to develop American business activities in
a rapidly expanding Asia.

Brown acknowledged the problem and said he planned to "beef up
operations throughout Asia," including the opening of a US
commercial office in Shanghai, which would provide American
companies, particularly small and medium-sized ones, help in
establishing a presence in China.

This type of government assistance can be encouraging and
vital to smaller US companies that do not have the resources and
clout of a large corporation, said Susan Corrales-Diaz, president
of Systems Integrated, a small high-technology company in
California.

"It does mean a lot in a place as large and diverse as China,"
said Corrales-Diaz, also a member of the delegation.

This new policy under US President Bill Clinton has come under
criticism for giving business concerns priority over other
issues, such as human rights, especially since Clinton renewed
China's most-favored-nation trade status in May despite mounting
abuses by Beijing.

But Brown contends that "commercial engagement," with US
businesses leading by example in an economically expanding China,
is the best way to improve the human rights situation there.

"Those who assumed our role within the Chinese market would
almost certainly be less concerned than we would be about issues
such as human rights," he said.

Delegation members said the United States had also been
falling behind European countries, particularly Germany, France
and Britain, because of the soft loans or aid they provide to
Asian countries tied to projects involving companies from their
respective countries.

Brown said the United States export bank is taking a new
aggressive approach in linking development loans and grants to
projects involving American companies.

"We will use all the fair and legitimate tools at our disposal
to ensure that we win the market share that we expect in China,
in Hong Kong, in Asia and around the world," Brown said.